As is well known by those skilled in the art, the skill of a batter in the games of baseball and softball is determined by several factors including: judgment or ability of the batter to know when to swing at a ball which will be in the strike zone, the ability of the batter to make a decision to swing and then get the bat off of his shoulder and into the ball/bat impact zone or response time, and the speed of the bat at the time of impact with the ball. Consequently, as is also well known by those skilled in the art, the ability of a batter to hit a "long ball" is not necessarily only related to the strength of the batter. That is, it is not uncommon for a smaller batter to sometimes be able to hit a ball harder and longer than a larger and stronger batter. Also as is well known in the art, some batters have an eye for the ball and are able to respond with a quick bat swing such that contact of the bat and the ball will take place when the ball moves into the "impact or strike zone." It is also, of course, well known that the size of the bat itself may affect both the response time of the batter and the speed of the bat as it passes through and contacts the ball in the impact or strike zone. Therefore, one of the purposes of the present invention is to be able to determine the response time of a batter with a particular bat.
Another object of the present invention is to be able to determine the bat speed of the bat as it passes through a selected area of the strike zone. Therefore, it will be appreciated that if both the bat speed and the response time of a batter can be determined with respect to a selection of different bats, sizing the bat for a particular batter to achieve the fastest response and to achieve the greatest bat speed for more distance becomes possible.
A review of the prior art references related to the present invention indicates there are several patents which disclose techniques for measuring the speed of a moving object by means of a light beam. The U.S. Pat. No. 3,145,025 issued to J. H. Morrison, et.al. on Aug. 18, 1964, for example, measures the speed of a bowling ball as it travels the length of the alley between a first light beam and sensor located near the upper end or the foul line of the alley and a second light beam and sensor located approximate the first pin at the opposite end of the alley. The bowling ball starts a time circuit when it crosses the first light beam and stops the timing circuit when it crosses the second light beam. In a similar manner, the U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,951 issued to Montgomery, et.al. on Mar. 2, 1971, and the U.S. Pat. No. 4,097,800 issued to J. Kuchmas, Jr., et. al. on June 27, 1978, disclose techniques which use a laser beam to measure the speed or velocity of a projectile such as a bullet or rocket. According to each of these patents, intersecting the first laser beam will initiate counting circuitry, and the intersection of the second laser beam will terminate the counting. The speed of the rocket or bullet is then computed by the number of clock pulses occurring during the time required for the projectile to cross the two laser beams. The Kuchmas Patent uses a single laser beam which is reflected a number of times between two reflecting plates wherein each reflection is displaced a slight distance from the previous reflection until at the end of the plate a sensor is triggered by the reflection. The speed of the projectile is determined by triggering counter circuitry at the moment of firing the projectile and terminating the counter circuitry whenever the projectile intersects one of the beams reflected between the two parallel plates. Other patents such as the U.S. Pat. No. 3,685,909 issued to L. L. Schwartz on Aug. 22, 1972, and the 2,571,974 Patent issued to J. Walker on Oct. 16, 1951, are similar in that they relate to techniques for determining the speed of a golf club. According to the Schwartz Patent, the speed of the golf club is determined as the head of the golf club breaks the first beam to start a timing circuitry and then breaks a second beam to terminate the timing circuitry in the same manner as was discussed above. The Walker Patent also determines the speed of a golf swing, but instead of using a horizontal light beam it uses a series of vertical beams for providing a positive "score" if the club breaks the proper light beams and a negative "score" if the club breaks certain light beams outside the proper swing area.
Thus from the above, it is seen that although laser beams have been used to measure the speed of items through light beams, nowhere in the prior art have there been techniques or devices suitable for use in determining the response time of a batter, or for determining the bat speed of the batter as the bat crosses the strike or impact zone such that the batter can properly choose a bat having a size more appropriate for his size and physical abilities.
Therefore, it is an object of this present invention to provide effective and inexpensive methods and apparatus for determining the response speed of a batter and the bat speed of a bat through a strike zone to allow proper selection of a bat which is appropriate for a particular batter.
It is another object of this invention to provide methods and apparatus for providing information to allow constructive coaching techniques to determine any correlation existing between batting skill, response time and bat velocity.